When Cathy DeCory mentioned that she’d received a couple of “highly allocated” beers from Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, we were intrigued.
Ms. DeCory is the manager at one of Pagosa’s downtown liquor stores, Plaza Liquor, and is constantly looking for interesting ways to keep her customers satisfied, and intrigued.
Did I mention, we were intrigued?
We’d never heard of “allocated beer.” Turns out that craft breweries occasionally make very small batches of select beers — batches so small that liquor stores consider themselves lucky to receive even a single case. (24 bottles.) Such was the situation when Ms. DeCory ordered two allocated beers from the Milton, Delaware-based Dogfish Head brewery.
There was not going to be enough to go around, you might say. 24 bottles.
She handed us a flyer, announcing the availability of Dogfish Head ‘120 Minute IPA’ and Dogfish Head ‘World Wide Stout’ — each priced at $10.99 per bottle.
Heck, we usually don’t spent $10.99 even for a whole six-pack. But how often are you offered a chance to drink a “highly allocated beer’? We couldn’t resist.
Cynda plunked down the money for the ‘120 Minute IPA’ and I forked out for the ‘World Wide Stout.’ We carried the bottles carefully out to the car and strapped them into the back seat, with the seatbelt.
To memorialize the purchase, we posed the bottles on Cynda’s back porch railing, just as the Colorado sun was casting its orange evening light on the San Juan mountains.
We made an date to open the first bottle the following evening, when we could relax and enjoy the experience. The much anticipated experience.
Candlelight. Placemats. A plate of ‘Ambrosia’ apple slices and Tillamook Pepper Jack cheese. Two slender souvenir beer glasses from last month’s Chamber Bands & Brews Festival in Town Park. And one bottle of Dogfish Head ‘120 Minute IPA,” to be shared.
From the Dogfish Head website:
Clocking in at 15-20% ABV, 120 Minute IPA is continuously hopped with a copious amount of high-alpha American hops throughout the boil and whirlpool, and then dry-hopped with another pallet of hops. Unfiltered and abundantly hoppy, it’s the Holy Grail for hopheads!
We brew 120 Minute IPA a few times a year, but it goes fast. If you find some, grab a few bottles — some to enjoy and some to age.
Neither Cynda nor I would call ourselves, “hopheads,” although we’re both fond of a good IPA.
120 Minute IPA was delicious, and, we both agreed, nothing like any IPA we’d ever tasted. The flavor was highly complex, more like a fine exotic spirit than a “beer.” No, not like bourbon or scotch or rum. Something equally complex and intense, yet arising from a base of malted barley and hops.
We spent about a leisurely hour sipping our tiny glasses of beer, watching the sunset, and nibbling on the apple and cheese slices.
The following evening, we opened the Dogfish Head ‘Oak-aged Vanilla World Wide Stout’ and began a very different, but equally satisfying, taste experience. One 12-oz. bottle was quite enough to keep two people sipping late into the evening.
From the Dogfish Head website:
Rare and often rumored about in the darkest corners of the beer community, World Wide Stout is dark, rich, roasty and complex, and lingers somewhere beyond the limits of the average beer.
Brewed with a ridiculous amount of barley, we’ve now taken this Dogfish Head classic and aged it on oak with real vanilla beans! With a little tender love and care we foster this beer from smooth, sweet wort into the big, bad blackened stout it always longed to be. Its bold, port-like complexity goes great with (or as) dessert.
As Cynda and I chatted about the taste of the vanilla-enhanced World Wide Stout (it was difficult to talk about ordinary things, in such a situation) I mentioned to her that I was reminded of the first time I tasted the Christmas cookies known as “Bourbon Balls” which my father concocted every holiday season to give away to friends and relatives. Slightly sweet, but otherwise out of the ordinary, with a highly concentrated flavor profile.
(That’s a phrase I’ve borrowed from Plaza Liquor owner Shawn Lacey, when he was describing the Dogfish Head ‘World Wide Stout’… A highly concentrated flavor profile.)
We stopped by Plaza Liquor yesterday to tell Ms. DeCory how much we’d enjoyed the “highly allocated beers” and she mentioned their plans to install a new cooler near the store entrance to highlight their selection of craft beers — both ‘allocated and non-allocated’ — and to allow customers to ‘build your own six-pack’ to include a mix of brands and styles. We’re looking forward to seeing how that idea plays out as we enter into the ‘Season of Celebrations.’
If you happen to see 120 Minute IPA or World Wide Stout in the new cooler, you might consider bringing a couple of bottles home — to drink right away, or to stash away in your wine cellar for that special evening by the fireside.